


for you i'd bleed myself dry

by epigraphs



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Sort Of, tag for 5.15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26430568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epigraphs/pseuds/epigraphs
Summary: Two shots ring out in a courthouse and Alicia Florrick’s world spins on its axis. (Episode tag for 5.15.)
Relationships: Alicia Florrick/Will Gardner
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	for you i'd bleed myself dry

**Author's Note:**

> One more fic for this fandom from me, and this time it’s Alicia-heavy. This is an episode tag to 5.15, but moves forward a little differently than the show. 
> 
> Title is from “Yellow” by Coldplay. 
> 
> [This fic is also on ffn, where I'm teammccord.](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13695332/1/for-you-i-d-bleed-myself-dry)

Two shots ring out in a courthouse and Alicia Florrick’s world spins on its axis. 

She doesn’t know it yet though, doesn’t know about missing shoes and pools of blood and open holsters and an Assistant State’s Attorney with a hero’s instinct. 

She doesn’t know just how close it really was — half an inch in either direction and the bullet would have ruptured an artery, too much blood loss for anyone to survive. 

All Alicia knows is that she’s never seen this look on Eli before. The colour has drained from his face and his hands shake as he gives her the cellphone. His eyes are wide and his lips are pressed together in a narrow line, like he’s afraid of what might come out if he opens them.

Four words from Kalinda nearly shatter her universe: “Will has been shot.” It takes all of Alicia’s willpower not to scream right there, in the hotel ballroom at two in the afternoon. She presses her hand to her mouth instead and tries to remember the mechanics of breathing. “He’s in surgery,” Kalinda says, her voice eerily calm. “They don’t know if he’ll make it.” 

Alicia thinks she might be sick.

/

Diane is standing in the hospital waiting room, both arms wrapped around her chest, protective. Alica spots her as she’s rounding a corner and their eyes meet. There’s a split-second of wordless understanding between them — hatchets are buried, the past few weeks forgiven and forgotten — before Diane opens her arms and pulls Alicia into a hug. 

Alicia feels tears pricking at her eyelids, and she steps back to wipe away an errant one that’s spilled down her cheek. “How—” She stops herself, doesn’t want to finish the question. She doesn’t want to make it real.

“Jeffrey Grant; they think he took the officer’s gun.” Diane’s voice is distant and measured, her gaze trained on the clock that hangs on the far wall. Alicia thinks this is what Diane sounds like when they first discuss the facts of a case, no emotion in it at all. “He killed the witness. The ASA is in ICU. Kalinda’s calling Will’s mother and sisters.” 

Alicia nods, sinking down on a waiting room chair. Diane takes the one opposite, gripping the armrests so hard that her knuckles turn white. Her back is ramrod straight.

“Will’s surgeon is supposed to be here with an update in an hour.” 

“Okay,” Alicia says, “then we wait.” 

/

Alicia ignores ten calls from Eli and Peter, presses decline like it’s an act of defiance and considers turning her phone off altogether. She tells Cary what happened when he calls about their deposition, and she’s glad that at least one of them can maintain a level head and man the ship. 

Kalinda comes back with cheap hospital coffee and Alicia finds herself folding up the wrapper of her sugar packet, perfect creases that create a tiny square. 

There’s a headline on the bottom of the waiting room’s television screen, alerting viewers to a courthouse shooting, telling them the suspect is in custody and that there’s at least one casualty. Updates to follow, the chyron promises, and Alicia finds herself back at the dry cleaner’s in Highland Park —  _ Breaking News: Cook County State’s Attorney accused of criminal conspiracy, trading sexual favours for lesser sentences _ — watching her world fall to pieces in a word-by-word crawl. 

Their heads all shoot up when the surgeon walks in, scrub cap in his hands. His face is unreadable and Alicia feels her heart drop to her stomach, sinking like a leaden weight in her gut. She can taste bile on her tongue. 

“It was touch-and-go for a bit there,” the surgeon says, with three pairs of eyes trained on him, “but he pulled through the worst part. Surgery should be over in a few hours, and then we’ll move him to the ICU. He’s not completely out of the woods, but we’re hopeful.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Diane says, and Alicia crumbles. 

/

Will is hooked up to what looks like a million wires and machines. The beeping matches the steady beating of his heart, and the sinusoid waves on the monitor prove that he’s alive, that he’s really there and breathing. 

It hits Alicia like a freight train, how close it really was.

She’s standing in the doorframe and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to step over the threshold. The past twenty years play back in her mind, from midnight pool parties to late-night Torts revision to a decade of separation. Scandal, a second chance, seven months of hotel rooms and lunch meetings, of building themselves a bubble and then watching it burst. 

She left with Cary because it was all too much — the looks, the memories, the electricity between them — but now, after weeks of civil war, insults thrown like barbs and fights below the belt, all of their animosity seems insignificant and petty. Will could have  _ died. _

Every time she thinks about it — a world without Will Gardner — it feels like someone has punched her in the gut and she’s clean out of air. 

Alicia takes one tentative step into the hospital room, cautious, like every noise she makes could shatter the illusion of Will, sleeping soundly, his face pale and chest bandaged. She doesn’t want to chance it, to risk him dissolving right before her eyes. 

Diane and Kalinda are right behind her, and she hears one of them gasp softly. Alicia turns and sees their faces, grief-stricken and relieved at the very same time. Something unspoken passes between them, because they stay by the doorframe and Alicia walks over to Will’s bedside alone.

She’s afraid to touch him, afraid he’ll shatter to pieces on impact. 

Alicia has never felt as helpless as she does now. Will could have  _ died. _ He could have died and been gone from her life forever. He could have died thinking she hated him — and she thinks that might be what hurts the most. 

Before she has the chance to decide what to do next, Will stirs, his eyelids fluttering. Alicia holds her breath. His hand opens and closes like he’s reaching for something, and then he’s looking at her, owlish, and Alicia’s crying all over again. 

“Alicia,” he croaks out, trying to hold up one hand as best he can. She takes it, feels his steady pulse and tries to remember how to breathe. “I’m okay. It’s okay.” 

She wants to scream, that,  _ No, none of this is okay and you almost  _ died _ and I should be the strong one right now, not you, and it’s not fair, that a bullet ripped through your chest and not mine instead. _ She doesn’t though, not now, just shakes her head and lets out a little laugh of relief and wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. 

“How are you feeling?” she asks, because he’s got to be in terrible pain, and in need of water and pillows and maybe another blanket. 

“I’ve been better.” He manages a hoarse chuckle, and she laughs for real now, because it’s so  _ Will _ to say something like that, and she turns back to Diane and Kalinda, beckoning them in.

/

Will’s asleep again when she finally checks her phone and finds a voicemail from that morning.  _ Will Gardner, 11:32 am. _ She taps it with shaking fingers and listens to what could have so easily been the last words she ever heard from him — interrupted by a judge, by the case, by a bullet that almost didn’t miss. 

A sob wracks through her body and she thinks of what could have been. She once said that what they had was romantic because it never happened, that otherwise, it would just have been life. Mundane, pedestrian. Normal. 

Now, as she sits in the armchair in Will’s ICU room, surrounded by wires and IVs, she thinks she’d give  _ everything _ for a life with Will in it. No matter how ordinary or mundane…  _ especially _ one that’s ordinary or mundane. She’s come far too close to the alternative, and she doesn’t think she’d survive it. 

/

They’re alone a few hours later, when Diane leaves to hold down her own fort and Kalinda goes off to figure out exactly how Jeffrey Grant managed to get a gun in a courtroom. Will’s mother and sisters are checking in at their hotel, and Alicia is so grateful that he’ll have family near. 

“I’m really glad you’re here, Leesh,” Will says, and the nickname does a funny thing to her insides, a warm feeling that spreads through her chest. He hasn’t used it since, well… since she walked out and ruined everything by not telling him why. 

If there’s anything she’s learned over the past day, it’s that life is far too short for miscommunication, mixed signals and crossed wires.

“I love you.” The words spill out before she has the time to second-guess them, and she barrels on, because if she doesn’t tell him everything now, there’s a chance she never will. “I think I’ve loved you for a very long time, but I was too scared to admit it to myself, but then you…” and she’s choking up now, it’s all too much, “…you almost  _ died, _ Will, and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t at least let you know.” 

There are tears in the corners of her eyes — again — and she spots some in his too. She thinks this might be the most she’s ever cried in the span of twelve hours. “That’s good to know,” he says, voice still quiet and raw, but there’s a twinkle in his eye. Will reaches for her hand, squeezes tight, and adds, “because I’m in love with you too.” 

The sound that spills out of her is halfway between a laugh and a sob, and she brings a hand to her mouth to try and hold it in. 

“C’mere,” he coaxes, pulling gently on her hand, and she leans down, her hair fanning over his face, his breath hot on her cheeks. Their lips meet and Alicia feels like she’s flying, like every awful thing they’ve done and said over the past few weeks is melting away, thawing like the first signs of spring.

She knows they’re not going to fix everything here and now — in an ICU room at ten in the evening, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks blotchy from too many tears — but it’s a start, and that’s all she’s ever needed. 

/

When it comes down to it, divorcing Peter is much easier than she imagined it would be. They’re civil about it; there are no shouting matches and stray accusations, just a resignation to the reality of things. The kids tell them they’ve been expecting it — for far longer than either of their parents thought. 

Zach and Grace tell their parents they just want to see them happy, that they understand, that a divorce won’t make them any less of a family. Alicia looks across the room at Peter and sees her own astonishment mirrored in his face. 

“When did our kids become these grown-up people?” she asks him when they’ve both gone off to bed and they’re in the kitchen, one last bottle of wine between them. For old time’s sake: a toast to new beginnings. 

Peter chuckles. “Probably the last time we blinked.” 

“We did good with them, didn’t we?” There’s a tear in the corner of her eye and a lump in her throat; if there’s one thing she’ll be grateful to Peter Florrick for, forever, it’s that he gave her the two best things in her life. Her kids.  _ Their _ kids. 

Peter gives her forearm a squeeze. “We did.”

/

Will takes her on their first real date two months after he’s released from the hospital, and she feels like a schoolgirl as she waits for him to pick her up from her apartment. It’s silly, because this is  _ Will _ and she’s known him for twenty-odd years and there was a time when she swore she could read him like an open book. 

Still, her stomach is in knots as she opens up the door and sees him standing there, in a sport coat and a dress shirt with dark wash jeans. She remembers when he used to wear faded denim and crewneck sweatshirts, backwards baseball caps to tame his unruly mop of hair. 

The thought settles itself deep in her chest and it’s comforting, to see the same look on his face now that he sported at twenty-three — wide eyes and a soft smile and just a little glint of self-confidence. He wouldn’t be Will Gardner without it. 

They end up in a quiet restaurant in River North, candle-lit and intimate, and Alicia reaches for his hand across the table, squeezes tight. Will stills for a second, a question in his gaze, and she just smiles. When she leans over the table to steal a kiss as they wait for their food to arrive, he grins. 

She thought tonight would be more awkward — stilted, maybe, and unsure — but talking with Will is as easy as breathing, and they fall back into the banter they shared at Georgetown, during her early days at the firm. They’ve always had a shorthand between them, inside jokes and oddball references and he’s always been able to make her laugh more than anyone else, leaving her in stitches and with aching cheeks from how much she grins. 

They’re walking along the waterfront, hands linked; the sun is setting over Lake Michigan, pinks and purples and oranges bleeding together overhead. Alicia’s leaning her head on Will’s shoulder, absorbing some of his body heat.

It’s a little chilly out, but mainly, she likes to have proof that he’s still here, that this isn’t a figment of her imagination. He’s alive, and they’re together, and they’ve forgiven and forgotten, and Alicia is grateful, every minute of every day. 

“Come home with me tonight.” She turns to face him and watches the emotions flicker across his face: surprise, confusion, excitement, love. Will lets out a laugh and kisses her, right there in the open on the path next to the lakefront, one hand tangled in her hair and the other warm on the small of her back. 

Alicia pulls back, face flushed and smiling. 

“Yeah?” he asks, eyes wide and impossibly eager. 

“Yeah.”

/

They face each other in the courtroom, and it’s funny, she thinks, that they know how to press each other’s buttons exactly right, everywhere they meet. Their sparring matches become fodder for more than one law gossip forum and local blog, and they joke about it, sitting on her sofa on a Friday night with a movie playing in the background, a pint of ice cream between them. 

Some weekends, Zach and Grace join them too, and Alicia marvels at how well Will and her kids get along. He tells them stories about their time in law school, talks to Zach about video games, to Grace about her faith. Alicia leans back on the sofa and smiles, her chest full of love for these three people who take up the most space in her heart. 

Their courtroom rivalry works (well) for almost a year, and when Alicia and Will and Cary and Diane finally end up across a table from one another — at lunch, neutral territory — they’ve come to make peace. There’s the economy to think about, Lockhart/Gardner’s unsuccessful LA venture, Florrick/Agos’ lack of walls and proper office space. It makes sense to join forces, and this time, no one’s doing it for personal gain.

“God, the letterhead is going to be a  _ mouthful,” _ Alicia says after they’ve all clinked glasses, but she’s laughing, and Will’s sporting a grin. 

/

Six months later, she’s in a ratty Georgetown tee and sweats, listening to  _ Weekend Edition _ as she leans her hip on the kitchen counter and waits for the coffee machine. It’s one of those Saturday mornings that they come by far too rarely, free of obligations and case files that tend to sneak their way home in their briefcases. 

Alicia takes the cup of coffee out from the machine and starts another, adding a splash of cream to the first. Scott Simon talks about the conflict in Syria and Alicia hears the lock on the apartment door click. 

“I got cinnamon rolls,” Will calls from the entryway as he toes off his runners, holding a plastic bag up with a grin. 

When he’s in the kitchen, he tries to wrap her up in a bear hug, but Alicia’s quicker, ducking out of his way because he loves to try to smother her with kisses when he’s sweaty, if just to watch her shriek. 

“I ran all the way to Ann Sather for these and I don’t even get a kiss?” Alicia can’t hold back her laughter at his face, all wide-eyed and pouting, the puppy-dog expression she first got to see back in 1L. He’s refined it ever since. 

“Fine,” she says, feigns reluctance as she leans in to press a peck to his cheek. Her smile betrays her and Will gets his chance as he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close, planting sloppy kisses up and down her neck, across her collarbone, until he captures her lips. 

“I love you,” he sneaks in between kisses, and it still makes her heart skip a beat. 

Alicia takes his face in her hands and leans their foreheads together, closes her eyes and listens to their staccato breathing. She wants to commit this moment to memory, in full technicolour. “I love you too,” she whispers, meeting him in another kiss.

The light filtering in through the kitchen window catches the diamond on her ring.

/

She’s bravest in the half-dark, when they’re drenched in moonlight and wearing nothing but their rings. Alicia runs her fingers across the scar on his chest, raised and puckering, tries not to dwell on what could have been. 

Will cups her cheek with his hand, tilts her chin up and captures her lips in a kiss. Slow and sweet, like they’ve got all the time in the world. Sometimes, Alicia needs to remind herself of the fact that they do. 

“Hey, hey,” he whispers when she pulls back, gentle, reassuring. He wipes a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” 

“Sometimes, I’m dreaming and you didn’t make it.” Her voice cracks and she takes a shuddering breath. “And I have to live for the rest of my life regretting that I never told you that I love you. That I never gave us a real chance.” 

“Leesh,” he says. His eyes are impossibly kind. She doesn’t know what she ever did to deserve him. “Trust me, I would have known.” 

Will shifts so they’re both lying on their sides and facing each other, legs tangled together under the sheets. Alicia moves her hand to his torso, splaying her fingers across his chest. His heart beats steady under her palm. 

“I’ll love you forever,” she says, because she doesn’t want him to ever doubt it. She loves him, and it’s terrifying sometimes, the magnitude of the feeling. It’s deep in her bones, chronic, and she doesn’t think she could ever stop. 

Will’s lips curve upward in a slow smile. “I’m okay with that.” 

Alicia can’t help the laugh that escapes her, a giggle, really, and she burrows further into his chest. She closes her eyes and focuses on his heartbeat, on the steady rhythm of his breathing. 

“Sleep, Leesh,” she hears him whisper into her ear, and feels him press a kiss to the crown of her hair. Outside, snow begins to fall.

/

/

/

/

Alicia wakes in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, drenched and shivering. The sheets are clammy around her shaking frame, and she pulls her knees to her chest on instinct. 

The other side of the bed is cold and empty. 

Two shots rang out in a courthouse and Alicia Florrick’s world spun on its axis. It won’t ever go right-side up again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com/_bucketofrice) and [Tumblr](https://goodthingscomeinthrees.tumblr.com/), come say hi!


End file.
